What to Look for in a Portable Power Station
When homeowners install solar panels in their homes, one of the most common concerns they express is how to handle power storage. Because solar power systems can only generate electricity when the sun is shining, homeowners need to find a way to ensure they have the power they need when the sun isn’t out, such as nighttime or on overcast days.
For the most part, there are ways to even out this imbalance. Net metering, for example, allows you to send excess energy back into the power grid, offsetting the power you consume during periods when your solar panels are not active. You can also use permanent solar batteries to store excess electricity.
However, one of the most useful tools to have in your home is a portable power station. These heavy-duty power banks allow you to power your home during a power outage or to keep your homes that are off the grid running at all times. In this article, we’ll look at how portable power stations work, as well as the various benefits of using an advanced power station like the LYCAN 5000 Power Box.
What Is a Portable Power Station?
When it comes to generators, most homeowners picture traditional, fossil fuel-powered generators that run on propane, natural gas, or diesel. While this may still be the best choice for homes without a solar power system, homeowners who have opted for solar panel installation in their homes have other options as well.
A solar generator like the LYCAN 5000 Power Box offers these homeowners several benefits over older whole home generator technology. Unlike fossil fuel generators, which need an external fuel source and create greenhouse gases that must be vented from your home, a portable power station that is charged by solar energy has zero emissions.
You can easily move portable power stations where you need them, and these devices can reliably run both large and small appliances, keeping your home running no matter what time of day it is. With the help of a qualified electrician, your portable power station can be quickly wired into a dedicated circuit in your home, allowing you to easily switch your generator on and off as needed.
Power Station Capacity and Power Output
The LYCAN 5000 Power Box has a truly massive power capacity of 4.8 kWh. This allows the portable power station to deliver up to 3,500W of continuous power, with a peak of up to 7,000W. For some perspective, that means you could run a 135W refrigerator continuously for 64 hours or a 1000W air conditioner for more than six and a half hours.
However, that storage capacity is simply the baseline. You can easily expand that capacity by adding 50Ah Smart Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries from Renogy. This gives you the ability to bring your total capacity to 19.2kWh, enough to enable you to experience true energy independence.
An Uninterrupted Power Supply
When you connect your portable power station to your home’s electrical panel, you can ensure that your home will have a totally uninterrupted power supply. With the auto-switch engaged, your LYCAN 5000 Power Box will be able to detect when your home requires supplemental power.
Once the auto-switch is tripped, the portable power station takes over, ensuring that you don’t experience an interruption in power. That way, your appliances will keep running, and you won’t find yourself moving from room to room, resetting large and small appliances to get them functioning correctly.
In other words, you can run your major appliances while also charging your phone, laptop, or other devices, all without worrying about a power interruption. And thanks to LYCAN’s pure sine wave technology combined with multiple levels of surge protection, you won’t have to worry about power spikes damaging any electronics powered by your solar generator.
Fast-Charging Portable Power
One of the biggest misconceptions about solar generators is that they can only rely on solar power for charging. While these generators are usually intended to be charged primarily by solar, the most useful models also allow homeowners to supplement that charging with power drawn from the electrical grid, usually from AC outlets.
Like many of these generators, the LYCAN 5000 Power Box focuses primarily on charging via solar panels. Thanks to its advanced maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm, this portable power station is able to modulate the energy produced by your solar panels to ensure maximum solar generation, meaning you could charge your generator in as little as 2.5 hours.
However, if you plug your LYCAN 5000 Power Box into an AC outlet, your generator can charge simultaneously from both sources. This means that your generator could go from 0% to 80% charged in as little as one hour, making it one of the fastest-charging solar generators on the market. With up to 4400W from solar and 2400W from AC power, your power station can handle an unheard-of 6800W of input power.
Durability
The LYCAN 5000 Power Box is powered by lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) deep-cycle batteries rated for 4500 cycles. That means if you use your portable power station once a day, you can enjoy more than ten years of power generation before the batteries reach 80% capacity, a significant improvement over older lithium-ion batteries.
There are a number of advantages to the LiFePO4 batteries that make them better suited to portable power stations compared to older battery technologies, including:
- Better temperature resilience
- Improved safety
- Environmentally friendly
- Significantly improved life cycle
- Higher capacity for same space
- Lack of memory effect decreasing battery life
- Improved cost of use
In addition to the more robust batteries, the LYCAN 5000 Power Box also has a number of built-in safety features to help protect the equipment (and everything connected to it) from damage. This includes power overloads, overvoltage, and power surges, including lightning strikes. These safety devices can be critical when it comes to extending the life of your portable power station.
Replaceable Components Make Repairs and Upgrades Easy
While the LYCAN 5000 Power Box works exceptionally well as a complete system, all of the individual components within your solar generator are modular. That means you can quickly and easily replace any components within your portable power station, from the inverter charger to the individual circuit breakers.
There are two major benefits to being able to replace individual components in your portable power station. First, it makes repairs much easier and more affordable. Instead of having to replace your entire generator, you can identify the components that are causing the malfunction and replace them with new parts.
Second, replaceable components make it simple to upgrade your portable power station. While the LYCAN 5000 Power Box is at the leading edge of technology, you can keep it that way by upgrading components as needed. As advances in solar technology progress, you can continually upgrade your generator by adding extra capacity and ensuring you have the most efficient inverter technology available.
Bluetooth Enabled
One additional feature that many homeowners will enjoy is the ability to track your portable power station’s performance with the help of the DC Home app. Available on both iOS and Android, the DC Home app lets you see how efficiently your LYCAN 5000 Power Box is charging and discharging energy, tracking input and output in real time from anywhere.
This accurate, convenient app gives you the power to see exactly how your equipment is performing, providing you total control over your home solar power storage. That way, you can make adjustments to improve your power generation and storage to ensure you’re getting the most out of your home solar system.
Make Sure You Have Power When You Need It
Whether you’re considering installing solar panels for home power generation or you already have a solar installation and are looking for ways to improve your energy profile, consider adding a portable power station to your home. Installing solar panels is just the first step towards energy independence.
With the LYCAN 5000 Power Box, you’ll ensure that you have the power that you need no matter what happens. From extended periods of overcast skies to surprise power outages that can strike the electrical grid without notice, there are many times when you may find you need supplemental power to keep your home running.
The cutting-edge technology in LYCAN’s generator offers homeowners exceptional reliability and unbeatable power generation. And with the ability to replace components, you can repair or upgrade your equipment as you see fit. Because you can expand your generator’s capacity, you can even make your portable power station a major component of your efforts to get off the power grid.
If you’re looking for ways to move to renewable energy sources while remaining confident that you can keep your refrigerator running no matter what, a portable power station is a proven way to keep your home’s energy flowing. You should find that over time, your portable power station will more than pay for itself.
